1). Cisco CCNP / BCMSN Exam Tutorial: Dynamic VLANs and VMPS By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
Knowledge of Dynamic VLANs and VMPS is important in your efforts to pass the BCMSN exam and earn your CCNP, and it's also a great skill to have for your networking career.
As a CCNA and CCNP candidate, you know how and why to configure static VLANs. Static VLANs can be a powerful tool for reducing unnecessary broadcast and multicast t...

2). Cisco CCNP / BSCI Certification: The BGP Attribute “MED” By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
When you're preparing to pass the BSCI exam and earn your CCNP certification, one of the biggest challenges is learning BGP. BGP is totally different from any protocol you learned to earn your CCNA certification, and one of the differences is that BGP uses path attributes to favor one path over another when multiple paths to or from a destination e...

3). Cisco CCNP / BSCI Tutorial: Route Summarization With RIP And EIGRP By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
To pass your BSCI exam and earn your CCNP certification, you've got to master route summarization. When you get to the BSCI level, actually breaking the routes down into binary strings and performing summarization is second nature to you. (If it isn't, get some more practice!) What makes CCNP / BSCI route summarization more difficult is just keepin...

5). Passing Your MCSE Exams On The Road To Microsoft Certification By : James Croydon
To earn the Microsoft certified systems engineer certification and to prove expertise in designing and implementation of the infrastructure for business solutions based on the Microsoft Windows 2003 platform and Microsoft Windows Server system, MCSE exam is the best medium.
MCSE exam is held to improve the expertise in designing and i...

9). Cisco Home Lab Tutorial: Buying And Building A Frame Relay Switch By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
One of the major topics on your CCNA and CCNP exams is Frame Relay. Additionally, Frame Relay is one of the most popular WAN technolgies in today's networks. Getting hands-on experience with Frame Relay in Cisco networks isn't just a good idea, it's a necessity. Let's face it, your employer is going to get a little touchy if you start experimenting...

11). Cisco CCNA Exam Tutorial: Five ISDN Details To Remember By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
CCNA exam success depends on mastering many technologies that are new to you, and few exam topics have more details than ISDN. ISDN isn't just for your CCNA exam studies, though. While ISDN is dismissed by many, the fact is that there are many small and mid-size networks out there that use ISDN as their backup to frame relay. Some of these companie...

12). Cisco CCNA / CCNP Home Lab Setup: How To Configure Reverse Telnet By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
Occasionally, during your CCNA and CCNP studies, you'll run into a term that just doesn't quite make sense to you. (Okay, more than occasionally!) One such term is "reverse telnet". As a Cisco certification candidate, you know that telnet is simply a protocol that allows you to remotely connect to a networking device such as a router or switch. But...

17). Cisco CCNP / BSCI Exam Tutorial: Leading Zero Compression By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
The BSCI exam and CCNP certification requires that you be well versed in the basics of IP Version 6, or IPv6. If you're new to IPv6, you'll quickly learn that it's not exactly just two more octets slapped onto an IPv4 address! IPv6 addresses are quite long, but there are two ways to acceptably shorten IPv6 address expression. To pass the BSCI exam,...

18). Cisco CCNP Exam Tutorial: Defining Collision Domains By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
CCNA exam success depends on mastering the fundamentals, and two important fundamentals are knowing exactly what the terms "collision domain" and "broadcast domain" mean. In this free Cisco tutorial, we'll take a look at the term "collision domain" and how a collision domain is defined.
A collision domain is an area in which a collisio...

19). Cisco CCNP / BCMSN Exam Tutorial: BPDU Skew Detection By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
You may look at that feature's name and think, "What is a BPDU Skew, and why do I want to detect it?" What we're actually attempting to detect are BPDUs that aren't being relayed as quickly as they should be.
After the root bridge election, the root bridge transmits BPDUs, and the non-root switches relay that BPDU down the STP tree. Th...

20). CCNP / BCMSN Exam Tutorial: VLAN Trunking Protocol (VTP) By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
Passing the BCMSN exam and getting one step closer to the CCNP certification means learning and noticing details that you were not presented with in your CCNA studies. (Yes, I know – you had more than enough details then, right?) One protocol you’ve got to learn more details about is VTP, which seemed simple enough in your CCNA studies! Part of lea...

21). Cisco CCNP / BSCI Exam Tutorial: OSPF Router Types By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
When you're preparing to pass the BSCI exam on the way to the coveted Cisco CCNP certification, you can be quickly overwhelmed by the sheer amount of BGP and OSPF knowledge you must demonstrate a mastery of. One set of details that some BSCI and CCNP candidates underestimate are the differences between the OSPF router types.
An OSPF I...

22). Cisco CCNP / BSCI Tutorial: The Role Of The OSPF ASBR By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
To pass the BSCI exam and earn your CCNP certification, you've got to master the (many) details of OSPF. You might have thought there were quite a few OSPF details in your CCNA studies, but you'll now build on that foundation on the way to earning your CCNP.
One such detail is the role of the Autonomous System Border Router (ASBR) in O...

23). Cisco CCNA / CCNP Home Lab Tutorial: Starting Over By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
When you're preparing for success on your CCNA or CCNP certification exams, sooner or later you're going to want to start totally from scratch on your Cisco routers and switches. It's easy enough to type "write erase" and "reload", but there are a few details you have to watch if you want your home lab or rack rental devices to act as though they j...

25). Cisco CCNP / BSCI Exam Tutorial: IP Version 6 Zero Compression By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
BSCI exam success is all part of becoming a CCNP, and part of that success is now learning the basics of IP Version 6, or IPv6. One of the most difficult parts of learning IPv6 concepts is the radically different addressing scheme that IPv6 uses as compared to IPv4. Just look at these sample addresses:
Typical IPv4 address: 129.14.12.2...

26). Cisco CCNA / CCNP Certification: Introduction To BGP Attributes By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
BGP is one of the most complex topics you'll study when pursuing your CCNP, if not the most complex. I know from personal experience that when I was earning my CCNP, BGP is the topic that gave me the most trouble at first. One thing I keep reminding today's CCNP candidates about, though, is that no Cisco technology is impossible to understand if yo...

27). Tips On Buying A Cisco CCNA / CCNP Home Lab Kit By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
Buying a CCNA / CCNP home lab is the best way to be totally prepared for your Cisco exams. Most home labs are put together one router or switch at a time, but many CCNA / CCNP candidates prefer to buy kits where you get multiple routers and switches, along with all the cables and other connection devices you'll need.
While this is a go...

28). Cisco CCNP / BSCI Exam Tutorial: Using Distribute Lists By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
To be successful on the BSCI exam and in earning your CCNP, you've got to master route redistribution. This isn't as easy as it sounds, because configuring route redistribution is only half the battle. Whether it's on an exam or in a real-world production network, you've got to identify possible points of trouble before you configure route redistri...

29). Cisco CCNP / BSCI Exam Tutorial: ISIS Router Types By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
To pass the BSCI exam and earn your CCNP, you've got to know ISIS inside and out. There are many similarities between ISIS and OSPF, but one major difference is that ISIS has three different types of routers - Level 1 (L1), Level 2 (L2), and L1/L2.
L1 routers are contained in a single area, and are connected to other areas by an L1/L2 ...

30). Cisco CCNA Certification Exam Tutorial: The OSPF RID By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
OSPF is a major topic on your CCNA exam, as well it should be. OSPF is a widely-used WAN protocol, and you need to learn the fundamentals before moving on to more complicated configurations. One such detail is the OSPF Router ID, or RID.
The RID is the dotted decimal value by which other OSPF routers will identify a given OSPF router. ...